Review: Lilo and Stich (2002) on 4k UHD
Our good friends over at Disney sent us a copy of Lilo and Stich on 4k UHD. Here's our review!
Lilo and Stich was originally released in theaters in 2002 and was one of the last Disney movies to feature hand drawn 2d animation. This film holds a special place in the hearts of millennials which comes on the heals of live action Lilo and Stitch releasing May 23rd even more exciting! The film has always looked gorgeous even on its BD release. But now for the first time ever fully restored in 4k UHD with Dolby Vision/HDR with a new Dolby Atmos audio mix!
This is not an upscaled master for this film - it’s a full 4k restoration!
This film’s animation used water color backgrounds similar to the original Snow White and Dumbo movies. This is the first Disney film from the 1940’s to bring that style back and it truly shines because of it even more in 4k!
Lilo and Stitch was originally supposed to be a children’s book that co-director/co-write Chris Sanders turned into a feature pitch to Disney. Disney greenlit the film under one condition that it would look like Sanders animated the whole thing because his concept art was very eye pleasing to the Disney executives!
That looks bright and sounds beautiful! The HDR pops the colors off of the screen from blue to red and greens and just shines on your tv set. The picture is absolutely stunning! Much like how when I watched Snow White 4k restoration a year or two back - this just absolutely stuns! The HDR significantly enhances the colors making for fun and enjoyable watch!
It’s nice too to finally have a 4k UHD title you can enjoy with the whole family as we get very few of those and here’s to hoping we get more beloved animation titles on 4k UHD from Disney.
The new Dolby Atmos mix packs a punch and transports from space to earth. Bringing you into the action, you can hear various sound effects throughout that I never picked up on before.
The score and music also truly shines on this Atmos mix creating a concert-like atmosphere especially on Elvis tracks! A 10/10 mix here.
I highly, highly recommend this 4k UHD restoration as it’s not available on Disney + and looks and sounds significantly better than its original HD format.
That’s so cool that Lilo & Stick had the same opportunity as TMNT in terms of being anticipated to be highly successful so they immediately decided to adapt it into another medium. I love that fun fact!